
The first Health & Wellness Tips for our MVNP crew and everyone else interested in Mesa Verde. This week May 23, we have had rain, cloudy skies, hail, and both cold and hot weather as we move toward the summer. The mesa ranges from 6,000-8,500′ elevation, and is mostly Windy, all the time. Wind is the change agent, it moves air to cool up the mountain, down the mountain, across the water, even in circles that are often called dust devils. We know wind on our skin as it evaporates moisture off of our bodies quicker and often times we can begin shivering even when the sun is hot and shining. Wind moves through windows and doors, through cliff dwellings and through the canyons. It carries moisture, pathogens and as the old Greeks called them Humours. The Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460 BCE–370 BCE) is often credited with developing the theory of the four humors—blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm—and their influence on the body and its emotions. The Indigenous people have written many stories about wind. Wind carries messages between the mountains so they can talk to each other and they are the caretakers of those that live in the valleys below. Wind can be mischevious, destroy things too. The trees get to move when the wind blows through, and sitting in a hot desert, wind is very appreciated for bringing reprieve. Remember water is life, and it is through the celebration of water, even every sip, every drop that falls, do a rain dance, a celebration for this gift of life, and never forget we too are 70% water just like the oceans that have created this place we share life with.